A gentle reminder before exploring sausage-making . . .
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So, on with a fairly quick post about how the sausage gets made. We begin with this photo (as shot on Nikon D200 with a Nikon 80-400mm VR lens) . . .
I mean, it’s not a bad photo. It’s a little soft and overly bright, but it was the middle of the day in Colorado, the sun beating down something fierce. Well, first we crop and sharpen using Topaz Sharpen AI.
Next up, I shoot that over to DxO’s Nik Collection Color Efex Pro 4 . . .
That’s not bad, and from there . . .
You can’t see the painting-like treatment unless you got to SmugMug, but it’s there. Because it’s a painting it should be framed, no? Enter Topaz Studio 1.0.
I could have taken the output from Color Efex Pro and went into a charcoal monochrome treatment . . .
Then, back to Studio (2.0, this time) for another framing job.
Of course, one need not do a whole lot of work . . . here’s an example of minimal sausage-making. Again, we begin with a coyote out in a field (the same coyote, in fact).
Again, a crop to frame the beast . . .
Notice the photo is a little soft. As I often mention, I rather the camera did little-to-no modifications to the RAW image. Especially sharpening; I prefer to do my own sharpening as opposed to letting the camera modify the original capture. In this case, I again resort to Topaz Sharpen AI (Just a touch to bring the features into focus).
It may look subtle on a small screen, but it’s noticeable when viewed in a proper screen and larger.
And, of course, a gentle touch of Color Efex Pro 4.
Sometimes, there’s not much sausage to be made. Again, in the harsh light of mid-day sun, there’s little that can be improved.
Anyway, wrapping this up . . .
This LINK will take you to the SmugMug gallery that has the full-size versions of the above and also photos in recent reminder posts.
I’ll close this update with a gallery of the above . . .
That’s it. This post has ended . . . except for the stuff below.
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